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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27380893">Golf Morning</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/glowspider/pseuds/glowspider'>glowspider</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Parahumans Series - Wildbow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Golf, Dystopia, Tragedy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:34:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,871</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27380893</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/glowspider/pseuds/glowspider</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>On the eve of Gold Morning, Taylor Hebert leaves it all on the green. Annette just wants to leave it all behind.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Green</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/CPericardium/gifts">CPericardium</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you to <a href="https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/CPericardium">Peri</a> for all of the beta work, and to <a href="https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/xbritomartx/works">Roon</a> for factchecking. I hope this is everything you asked for.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The world was a green, the same way the sky was blue.</p><p>She’d had this epiphany at a young age. Not as young as some others might, but certainly not so old as to make you think she was unobservant or ignorant. Let’s call her eight years old. That’s as good an age as any to start a story.</p><p>Eight was the age she was finally permitted to play on South Brockton Country Club’s 18-hole course. It was a big deal—no more of those dinky mini-golf places that they booked for her birthday, lawn bowling in the front yard, driving ranges, or, worst of all, Sunday School where they only ever talked about golf when Joey Smelly the big kid wanted to know if Jesus was going to forgive him for hitting ten over par.</p><p>“My little baby,” said her mom. She held up a Polaroid camera to take a picture. “Look at you! All grown up and playing golf.”</p><p>She was too young to really be embarrassed about this coddling behavior, though that would come later. Regardless, her excitement overrode every other emotion she might have been feeling. </p><p>Being eight, that other competing emotion was “I want to pick my nose.” This is an urge felt in both the finger and the nostril, and can only be resolved through the union of the two. I’m sure humans can all recall a similar feeling—for golf, I mean. Not nose picking. One’s first game of golf is unforgettable. What an exciting sport.</p><p>“Do you have your tee?” her dad asked. He was a sad and ineffectual man, but she had not discovered these things yet. For now, the father and daughter were bound by an oath of secrecy and mutual self-preservation, because neither told Mom when the other was picking their nose. </p><p>“Right here,” she said, pulling the tee from her pocket. </p><p>It was green, which kind of blended into the green of South Brockton Country Club’s well-maintained and watered course, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. Red tees were bad luck because red was an angry and stressful color. Green, she’d learned last year in actual school (as opposed to Jesus School), was the opposite color of red. Her child brain thought this was the most logical thing in the world. Like I said earlier, her second favorite pastime—second only to golf, naturally—was nose-picking. Perhaps those brain ridges needed a few more years to develop.</p><p>“Don’t forget your driver!” </p><p>“That’s the big one, sweetie.”</p><p>She stuck the tee into the ground, and rested the golf ball on it a moment later. “Dad, I know what a driver is.”</p><p>She tugged it free of the bag, which took a reasonably long time. It was the longest of her clubs, built to hit further than any other. </p><p>The girl cradled it in two hands, feeling out the familiar weight. Like the feeling of jumping off the high dive at the country club pool, this tool gave her a rush of adrenaline. It was dangerous and powerful, risky to use for a first-time golfer. She wouldn’t have it any other way.</p><p>Her mom snapped another picture on the camera.</p><p>“Remember, it’s okay to whiff on your first hit,” said her dad. “We’ll still love you all the same. It’s only a matter of time before you improve!”</p><p>“Our little golfer,” said her mom. “I still can’t believe this is happening. I might cry.” </p><p>She was looking down at the photo she had just taken. The captured artifact of her child must have appealed to her more than the real thing. Maybe even now, her mother had recognized the defiance within the girl, and so she preferred something flat and clean as a photograph, where sticky fingers and messy curls were contained and framed.</p><p>The girl froze, then took a moment to tighten her curly black ponytail. Her mom insisted they keep her hair long, but even beauty had to be sacrificed for the sake of the sport. There was no room for vanity in the world of golf—it was a fast-paced, intense, and physically exhausting game.</p><p>“I’m <em> not </em> going to whiff it,” she said, and swung her club.</p><p>Her backswing needed a bit more work, but the follow-through was clean. The head of the driver met the hard plastic of the ball, sending the ball flying off in the direction of the first hole. It landed with a soft little <em> thunk </em>some seventy yards off, rolling a bit before coming to a stop. Still on the green.</p><p>Her mother took another picture. </p><p>She squinted in the ball’s direction—she’d be needing glasses in a few months’ time—and spotted it there, gleaming under the Sunday morning sun.</p><p>Annette threw her hands in the air, her driver clutched between them.</p><p>“Look,” she said. “I did it!”</p><p>“I’m looking,” her mother replied, staring at the most recent photo she’d taken.</p><p>Annette grinned. Bermuda grass stretched out as far as the eye could see. It was so large, and she so very small, but the scale of the course was a comforting thing. On that turf, she felt more connected to her parents and the sport she’d been raised to love than ever before. </p><p>Another realization dawned upon Annette, for the second time today. Being a sharp young girl, she typically had more than two thoughts per day, so this happening was not abnormal or alarming. Today just happened to be a very special day, so everything was magnified, like adding jelly to an already tasty peanut butter sandwich. </p><p>This was her thought, in all its profundity:</p><p>The world was not just <em> a </em> green. The world was <em> her </em>green.</p><p>Annette began the walk toward the golf ball. With any luck (and a bit of strategy), she could make par on her very first hole.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>Taylor lay on the damp grass, confused as to how she’d ended up there. It was a weak position to be caught in—her soft belly was exposed, vulnerable to attack from balls and clubs and all manner of things, and it was wholly unlike Taylor to even put herself in that position in the first place. Dimly, she recalled how just moments ago, she’d been convulsing on the ground and flipping around like a fish on dry land. What had happened in the time in between then and now? What about the time before that?</p><p>She called to any nearby golf balls.</p><p>Two stashed in her belt, where she felt them pushing against a velcro flap. One by her hair, where she’d tucked it in case of emergencies. Four yards away, she felt one more, though its composition was unfamiliar to her—must have been someone else's. She called it close, along with the other three balls. A stray ball was a common sight on any Bet course, and remained that way on other worlds too.</p><p>Taylor sat up. Stray balls were common. </p><p>Beyond five yards, her senses fell flat. Maybe less than that. Taylor knew that there were more golf balls out there, but she couldn’t sense them, and their absence was disturbing, worse than even the pain of her phantom limb. </p><p>Her range. </p><p>She’d forced the second trigger, and this is what she got? A range about as far as she could putt.</p><p>“Goooooolf.” </p><p>She’d been trying to call for help. Taylor spoke again.</p><p>“Golf.”</p><p>So her language was gone too. </p><p><em> Announcer, </em> she thought, as she sometimes did in times of trouble, <em> what are we going to do? </em></p><p>I refrain from answering. It’s not in my job description to help my errant player. I only watch and comment. </p><p>Let me demonstrate: </p><p>
  <em> The wind is blowing northbound at a steady 4 mph, and the incline of the fairway is moderate, 7°. The sun is out. The green should play really well today. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> One of this tournament’s dark horses, Taylor Hebert, appears to have suffered an injury. Sports healer Amelia Dallon is standing nearby. I’d keep an eye out for these two. Amy isn’t much of a caddie, but she’s been busted for offering performance-enhancing powers before, and that stint in the Birdiecage is a pretty big smear on her record. I can only speculate on whether this is a similar situation. The Golf Morning tournament is shaping up to be a thrilling match. </em>
</p><p>Taylor is not dismayed at my lack of a response. It's hard to feel love or hate for an intangible thing, just as you can’t curse out rainy weather for a canceled round. To Taylor, I am no more understandable than a force of nature—one that narrates her thoughts and plays and past trauma for an eager audience. I am the disembodied voice that keeps those golfballs coming, long after Taylor passes out on her PRT Director murder-spree. She is my player. If she sacrifices bits of herself along the way, it does not matter. I care for nothing but the sport. I simply need her to play.</p><p>Her legs shook as she stood up. </p><p>There were people watching her. Amy was there, aghast like she had been the one to second-trigger. Others stood further back—Marquis, hair tied back in a golf-appropriate ponytail, and Lung, who’d managed not to burn down the Gimel green yet. </p><p>Lisa sighed. She was still wearing her custom made sweater-vest, with purple eyes stitched into an argyle pattern. It had gotten dirty in the past few days from the nonstop playing, even though she hadn’t been particularly close to the front lines. </p><p>“Taylor? You in there?” She sounded unbothered, but there was a pull to her cheek near the place where the silvery scar from Jack’s iron had hit her. She was upset.</p><p>“Bring me my clubs,” Taylor ordered. She’d dropped them when she’d fallen. </p><p>Amy, being the closest, bent down to pick them up.</p><p>“I’m challenging Scion.” Taylor looked at Lisa, and extended her only hand. “Come be my caddie? It’ll be just like Brockton Bay.”</p><p>“What?” Amy said. “We don’t even know if you’re fit to play anymore.”</p><p>Taylor ignored her. Amy had done her part, and was useless now. What Taylor really needed was Lisa’s eye for good shots, and her insight when it came to unfamiliar courses and specific weather conditions. Friendship had no function in the game of golf; her feelings for Lisa were as useless as a trick shot.</p><p>“I hate when you do this,” Lisa said. “You never ask for help until it’s too late. Did you think we wouldn’t listen? I would’ve paid for a trainer. I would’ve gotten you a membership at a country club. Anything for you. Anything but this.”</p><p>Taylor had never been a member of a country club before. She’d played illegally with the Undersiders, first out of excitement, and then as a way of discovering their methods for cheating, until eventually she’d joined them out of necessity. The Protectorate had supplied her with their private course in Chicago, where she’d trained relentlessly against the harsh winds of Lake Michigan. </p><p>As far as she understood it, the main benefit to being a member of a country club was saying you were a member of a country club. Everything else—the pools, the poolside snack bars, the 9-hole courses, the Long Island iced teas served in the world’s most cylindrical glasses—was just ornamental. She didn’t want that, and she didn’t want a trainer. She wanted a caddie. </p><p>She knew, in that moment, that she would be unable to say what she wanted to say to Lisa. Her words were now dedicated to the sport.</p><p>Watch her as she extends a hand outwards. She crooks her index finger in and shakes her hand, palm up, in Lisa Wilbourn’s direction. Folks, it’s not everyday you get to see something like this. Sometimes, the bond between a player and caddie is so deep that they develop their own methods of communication—not the usual golf jargon, but something altogether unique. Could that be what we’re seeing now?</p><p>I know it’s been suggested again and again that we mic up our caddies during tournaments. It would be amazing to know what insight they’re offering, and how they’re strategizing with the player, especially when the caddie themself also has a history of playing. But I have a feeling that if we were to mic these two up, it wouldn’t matter. The hand signals, the coded speech… those are things you just can’t translate.</p><p><em> I’m alright</em>, she signed. </p><p>It was the name of the Kenny Loggins song featured in 1980 global smash hit <em> Caddyshack. </em> Dad had assured her at the time of its release that it was a film unlike any other. Boasting a stellar cast and iconic performances, <em> Caddyshack </em>blended Bet’s most beloved sport and comedy like never before.</p><p><em> Caddyshack </em> was such a powerful piece that eventually, it found its way through the forge and flame of neverending fame: public school curriculums. Broadcasted on VHS tapes over VCR, and wheeled in on fat, stumpy TVs whenever the teacher was too hungover to do their job, <em> Caddyshack </em> remained a peerless piece, only rarely switched up with episodes of <em> Bill Nye the Science Guy— </em>the Bill Nye episode in question was always on water management and the water cycle. This was an important concept to understand for every self-respecting golf enthusiast. </p><p>So, you see, among Lisa and Taylor’s generation, <em> Caddyshack </em>had become something of a meme, forever associated with the rainy days when PE was canceled and they had to crowd everyone into the auditorium. Memories of the dancing gopher puppet had gotten them through some tough times together. Surely Lisa would understand.</p><p>“I’m teeing off in ten minutes,” Taylor announced. “Amy, with me.”</p><p>She made her way to the nearest golf cart, Amy and the bag she was struggling with in tow. Not for the first time, Taylor put Lisa behind her. </p><p>All that mattered now was golf. </p><p> </p><p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. CART PATH (For Golf Carts Only)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She shoved another polo shirt into the bag, squishing it up into a little ball that was sure to generate more wrinkles. The moment she was free of this place, it was getting pitched. </p><p>“Annette,” her mother scolded, “I taught you to treat your clothes better than this.” </p><p>She walked over, stepping around the many cardboard boxes crowding Annette’s childhood bedroom, and tugged the bag free. Dumping the whole thing out on Annette’s lacy pink bedspread, she got to work refolding clothes. </p><p>“Sorry, Mom.” By now the response was automatic, so meaningless and worn-out she could repackage it as vintage. </p><p>If anything, Annette was surprised her mother was folding her clothes at all. They had a maid for that. Perhaps Mother had felt some latent maternal urge, resurfacing again through a mimosa-induced haze after eighteen long years. It was too little, too late. </p><p>Annette felt a twinge of guilt over her plans for the clothes. She imagined her mother imbuing the polo shirts and knit sweaters and pleated skirts with every bit of her guidance and grace, completely unaware that they would all be burned or shredded the moment Annette located a nearby thrift shop. </p><p>“I really wish you hadn’t cut your hair,” her mother said. “Now your clothes don’t match.”</p><p>She tugged at a curl poking up from Annette’s scalp.</p><p>“Lucky for us, hair grows back.”</p><p>On second thought, she was ripping her wardrobe apart with her bare teeth. She could stitch the clothes back together again with her Brownie Scout home sewing kit, then rip them up again, and rinse and repeat until her clothes were little more than stitches and loose snarls of thread. Destruction wasn’t enough—she needed to break them first. The turtleneck would fall to its sleeve-knees, and beg for mercy, and Annette would refuse. She would place her ballet flat across the turtleneck’s turtleneck, and begin to <em> squeeze</em>, and—</p><p>“I’m not growing it out.”</p><p>“Sure, dear.” </p><p>This was just like her mother.</p><p>
  <em> “You look so pretty in that dress! But is green really your color?” </em>
</p><p>Or, <em> “Those piercings really make you stand out, dear. All of the girls at the country club were talking about you.” </em></p><p>And, <em> “I’m sure you’ll score under 100 the next time you try the 18-hole. That’s practically average. We know you can do better than average.” </em></p><p>Annette shoved a notebook into her backpack, ignoring the way some of the pages crumpled up along the bottom corner. The worst part was that her mother’s comments were<em> right.</em> She’d gotten better at golf, snagging a spot in the City Open two years in a row. Green wasn’t her color. The piercings had gotten infected.</p><p>Her mother had never gone beyond nagging. It was as if she cared enough to say something, but not to take action. She didn’t teach Annette to play golf, she hired a private trainer. She didn’t buy her new clothes, she brought in a personal stylist. The woman hadn’t let Annette sneak old antibiotics from the medicine cabinet—she’d taken her to a doctor, and then a <em> pharmacy</em>. It was humiliating. </p><p>Her dad walked by the open bedroom door. “Hey girls! Still packing?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Annette. </p><p>“Cool.” He hovered there, hip cocked and useless as always. </p><p>“Why don’t we go get some lunch?” her mother asked. “I’m sure Annette can handle the rest of the packing.” </p><p>And there it was—the woman hadn’t even folded three shirts and already she was leaving. </p><p>“Great idea!”</p><p>She watched them turn their backs. <em> Good, </em> Annette thought to herself. <em> Better to cut the cord early. </em>She didn’t need them anymore, just like they didn’t need her.</p><p>Her dad stopped. “Before I forget—here. Wanted to make sure you didn’t forget your lucky tee.”</p><p>He tossed the little green peg in her direction, overhand so that it went hurtling at an angle too awkward to comfortably catch. Annette barely snagged it. Who threw objects at people overhand? If she hadn’t spent so much time with the man on the golf course, she would have thought him devoid of any and all athletic skills. </p><p>She eyed her trash can. </p><p>Sighing, Annette returned to folding up clothes, leaving the familiar old tee on her bedspread, next to all the other stuff she still had to pack.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> ⛳</p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t quite a college party, but it was a step in the right direction. Bay State University had requested that all their freshmen move in a few days before classes started, and had a week full of “fun,” welcome-to-college events planned. </p><p>She’d attended Trivia Night yesterday, which had been depressingly empty besides a few overeager RAs, but had higher hopes for tonight’s mixer. They weren’t serving alcohol and the entire thing shut down at 11 P.M., but she didn’t know where the actual parties were happening. </p><p>She would have asked her roommate, except she’d only seen her roommate once in the two days she’d been here, when the girl had walked in at 4 A.M. and they had a conversation about the personalities that colors and single digit numbers had—four was a woman, and in a toxic relationship with seven, but four’s older brother eight was on the verge of intervening. </p><p>Hmm. Maybe she’d imagined that.</p><p>They were blasting some poppy song over the loudspeakers, and had turned the house lights down low. A surprising number of people were hitting up the dance floor. </p><p>Annette paused by the snack table, debating over whether to try one of the buffalo wings, or to keep her fingers clean. Dancing wasn’t an option—her ballroom lessons were short-lived, once her parents realized it didn’t help with her form, and it wasn't like those kinds of moves would have looked good out here anyway. </p><p><em> Fuck it. </em>The french-tip manicure she’d gotten with her mom at the nail salon last week was already beginning to chip. Annette grabbed a wing, and dunked it in the vat of ranch dressing her collegiate overlords had so kindly supplied. </p><p>She gagged. </p><p>It wasn’t ranch, it was bleu cheese. Why was it socially acceptable for cheese to be moldy? Here, an entire lifestyle away from charcuterie boards and wine tastings that she wasn’t allowed to participate in, and freaking bleu cheese had still found its way into her digestive tract. It was a pervasive rot society had waited too long to cut out.</p><p>As she began to spit the dressing into a paper napkin, a secret, giddy sort of realization struck Annette. Mentally, physically, emotionally, <em> spiritually, </em>she had been pronouncing and spelling “blue” as “bleu,” the way her parents and their country club friends always insisted it be spelled. But now that she was an adult and living on her own, Annette didn’t have to comply with such inane rules. </p><p>It was in this moment of newfound freedom that Annette caught another student staring at her. </p><p>There was no chance they hadn’t seen her baby spit-up pantomime. Maybe, even under the dim lighting, they might’ve seen her mouthing the word “blue” again and again, before switching back to “bleu” in order to dispose of more dressing—”bleu,” for all she despised the stupid word, was better for replicating the gagging motion of the tongue and mouth.</p><p>She pulled the napkin away from her face. She could still salvage the situation.</p><p>“Be careful—it’s <em> blue </em> cheese.”</p><p>“Not a problem,” the student replied. “I don’t like buffalo wings.”</p><p>Annette nodded. </p><p>“Vegetarian?”</p><p>“Nah, I just don’t like spicy foods.”</p><p>“Understandable.” She stuck out a hand. “I’m Annette, by the way.”</p><p>“Michael.” </p><p>He had a firm grip, shaking twice in quick succession before letting go. Professional, to-the-point, and definitively masculine. Maybe he’d taken classes for it, like she had. After she’d put her clubs away permanently, her parents insisted—because she would not go golfing, the only way forward for her to succeed in business was with a good handshake. </p><p>“Where are you from?” she asked.</p><p>This was how polite conversations went. Question-answer-question, until enough background info or an interest in a shared topic allowed two people to diverge from the formula and actually engage with each other as people. She’d done five different icebreakers earlier today, each more terrible than the last—introducing themselves with name, major, and where they were from, before their upperclassmen chaperones would so cruelly truncate the entire discussion. She was determined to get to know Michael better than that.</p><p>“Rochester,” he answered.</p><p>“Rochester! I’ve heard it’s pretty there. I’ve always wanted to go. I’ve only been in downstate New York—to the city. Typical out-of-state tourist, right?”</p><p>He smiled. “Yeah, we like to call it the Big Green Apple, because we’ve got all these trees and our courses are so well-maintained.”</p><p>“Oh, really?” She didn’t know anything about Rochester. Annette had never even heard of their well-maintained courses. She hoped they wouldn’t have to talk about golf for much longer.</p><p>He sighed. </p><p>“No. I was exaggerating. Most people just call it Rottenchester or Crotchchester.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to find those nicknames funny. Maybe it was a joke reserved only for the people of that community, and to laugh at it as an outsider would be offensive.</p><p>“So,” Michael said, after the silence between them had lingered long enough, though the pop music still boomed in the background, the thrum of each bass note creating little waves in the bowl of bleu—<em> blue</em>, Annettte corrected—cheese. “What about you?”</p><p>“Brockton Bay. I'm a local. I considered going out of state, but my parents wanted me close by.”</p><p>“Are you involved in the local scene or something? I’ve been meaning to check out what courses the Bay has to offer, and a cute girl with insider knowledge will really—”</p><p>“Want to get out of here?” </p><p>Her face was warm, and she felt sweaty all over. Had the buffalo wings been too spicy? She usually wasn’t allowed to eat them at home. Too messy, according to her mother, not that the woman actually kept a close enough eye on her to warn her away from them. Annette had avoided them like the plague for a long time for other reasons too, though. Red was an unlucky color. Who knows what they did to the chicken to pigment it that way.</p><p>He smiled.</p><p>“That would be nice,” he said.</p><p>She took his hand, knowing that hers was still a bit sticky from the sauce. Maybe he’d notice and let go. She was conflicted on whether she still wanted Michael’s friendship. She’d thought—she’d hoped—that he’d be different. Stacy from afternoon icebreakers with the side ponytail probably didn’t care about golf. </p><p>“What’s your major?”</p><p>“English,” she said. "Don’t laugh. I know it’s bad for getting a job.”</p><p>“I’m not laughing.”<br/><br/>Michael was looking down at their hands. Maybe it was odd to be holding hands with a person you’d just met? Annette didn’t have a lot of friends at the girls school after she gave up golfing, but they’d always been physically affectionate. Fixing uniforms, arms around shoulders, that sort of thing. </p><p>“So, do you like to read or something?” he asked.</p><p>“I do!” In her excitement, she tried to move, forgetting that they were pinkie-tied together now. He came with her like an unfortunate barnacle, and though it seemed that Michael didn’t mind, Annette was sort of embarrassed.</p><p>“What’s your favorite book?”</p><p>“<em>To the Lighthouse. </em>”</p><p>“Sounds familiar. What’s it about?”</p><p>“It’s this experimental story about a family at their vacation house over the years. The mother is holding the family together, and then she passes away, and things just aren’t the same afterwards.”</p><p>“Huh. So no action?”</p><p>She let go of his hand, stuffing hers into her pocket where she attempted to covertly wipe it out on the fabric lining. He felt clammy, like the New England clambake they’d had for her sixteenth birthday. Where were the sea metaphors coming from? <em> To The Lighthouse, </em>perhaps, which was set in the sweeping Hebrides that so many famous artists had been moved by. She liked to imagine herself visiting someday. So much green and yet no golf.</p><p>“No. There’s a cool part where Woolf writes from the house’s perspective. It’s very alien.”</p><p>“Is it short?”</p><p>“Kind of? A bit hard to read though. The focalization switches without warning.”</p><p>“Okay, I don’t know that word. You’ve lost me.”</p><p>A college student, and he didn’t even want to learn.</p><p>“It’s really not that hard. I can explain—”</p><p>“Have you read <em> The Driver in the Rye? </em>”   </p><p>She sighed. “Yes, I have. I’m not really a big fan of—”</p><p>“I love that book. It’s my third favorite golf book of all time, behind <em> Putt and Prejudice </em> and <em> Caddie’s Cradle. </em> I bet you think it’s silly for a guy to like Jane Austen, but the woman knows how to write a sports romance. I’m definitely a Mr. Par-cy type. Maybe Holden Caulgreen? I took this quiz in <em> Sports Illustrated </em>about which literary golfer I was that told me I was Mr. Par-cy, but when I took it again and answered differently, it gave me Holden. Crazy right? That’s how I knew I had to read those books.”</p><p>Annette blinked. What had started this? English had seemed like it should have been a safe topic; that was the whole reason why she chose it as a major in the first place. Her heart broke a little, mourning the loss of the person she had imagined Michael to be. </p><p>All Annette had wanted was a new college friend, someone who she could know <em> outside </em>of the sport that plagued her very existence. She exhaled through her teeth.</p><p>He was still talking. “I haven’t read a book since! I know you’re a reader and all, but who has the time for that? I’ve gotta get better at my stroke, so unless <em> Sports Illustrated </em>tells me I should read something, I’m just not gonna do it. Or ESPN, maybe. They’re pretty much the best TV network, behind US Golf Channel.”</p><p>Annette smiled, backing away slowly. “I just realized I have to get back to my room.”</p><p>“Whoa, wait,” he said. “I thought you wanted to get out of here.”</p><p>“I do.” But not with him. “Those buffalo wings made me feel a bit sick.”</p><p>“Oh. Okay. See you around.”</p><p>“Yeah.” </p><p>Always polite, always acquiescing. It was just how she’d been raised. Annette had no intention of seeing Michael again, but he didn’t have to know that.</p><p>She raced up the stairs and away from the pounding music. Outside, the air was humid and the heat of summer lingered over the city like a hotel comforter. Campus was dead—where all the people had gone, she didn’t know. Probably out with her roommate, getting sloppy drunk at an illegal party. </p><p>Annette tapped across the street in her chunky wedges, coming to a halt underneath the soft glow of a light pole. She eyed the nearby payphone. </p><p>Home was ten digits and some spare change away. Mom and Dad were probably still awake, sitting up in bed with the lamp on and going over score reports in today’s <em>Brockton Bay Gazette</em>. They’d pick her up, if she asked.</p><p>She reached into her pocket, then stopped. Ripped capris, chunky wedges, an open flannel, and a black tank top. All clothing she’d snuck out of the house to buy, and packed in relative secrecy when her parents were otherwise distracted. If she stayed the night, they’d ask where all her pretty dresses went tomorrow morning.</p><p>Annette waited there for a while longer, hoping the tears would wash out the stains of neon buffalo sauce.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>Behind heart attacks, golf cart crashes are the most common cause of death in the United States, and the seventh most common worldwide. </p><p>Let me tell you about a golf cart tragedy: a Philadelphia Ward took a golf cart joyriding through the city’s premier course. Drunk off mimosas, the combination of their driving inexperience and the hellscape that is big city-carting resulted in tragedy and the death of not just the Ward, but the Ward’s teenage passenger and the opposing cart’s occupants. </p><p>Some historians and culture commentators have likened this event to the death of the first cape Vikare, or Swing Theory’s bombing of a Cardiff course. It functions as a sociological case study on grief within the national conscience, and the cultural change that follows.</p><p>The big change following the 10 MPH crash was a spike in distracted-driving campaigns. Every commercial break of the 2006 PGA Tour was slotted with mandatory PSAs for responsible cart driving. Dipping into the Protectorate’s substantial federal coffers (thanks, cape-industrial complex), the public service announcements were well funded. However, an outpouring of well-meaning but mostly useless donations from local golf associations around America meant that the selection, style, and tone of the ads was… diverse. </p><p>Sarah Mclachlan made a record-breaking amount in royalties that year, mostly attributed to the song “I Will Remember You.” Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Cart” was a close second. These singer-songwriter sad jams were typically paired with pictures of teary-eyed teens and slow pans over the Fairmount Park fairway. It was emotionally manipulative. It was devastatingly effective.</p><p>Some children reported having night terrors over the ad with the old lady with the wedge stuck in her forehead, which she obtained in a disastrous carting accident as a young woman. That particular and notorious commercial ended with the woman swinging her head around in a desperate attempt to hit a ball, before eventually giving up and driving away in a cart. </p><p>The whole thing was so incredibly controversial that they pulled it from TV after only two weeks on air, but I can guarantee you that every child who witnessed that ad has since made a commitment to never drive recklessly.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>Amy stepped on the gas pedal and the cart lurched forward, rumbling along the cart-shaped path labeled “Cart Path.” A cart path, for viewers at home who might be unfamiliar with the sport, is a path designated for carts.</p><p>Golf carts can go up to speeds of 15 miles per hour. Much like the limited shelf-life of forePhones or the easy tear-ability of pantyhose or the very existence of parahumans, this flaw is by design. Under the guiding principles of planned obsolescence, golf carts are engineered so that they cannot do serious damage to nearby golfers, even when driven at top speeds. Can you even imagine that? It would be awful to die by golf cart hit-and-run. You’d be the laughingstock of the whole country club. </p><p>Golf carts can still be very dangerous when not operated correctly. This is why there are guidelines for driving golf carts, and etiquette on where and when to park them when traversing the green. Etiquette is essential to all aspiring golfers.</p><p>Amy was not following proper etiquette. She oscillated rapidly between hitting the gas and slamming the brakes, like a drunken migrating bird that did not remember which direction was south, and did not know that winter had ended two months ago, so there was no need to fly south at all. </p><p>“Jesus fucking christ,” said a faceless, feminine voice from the back, “do they not do Driver’s Ed in the Birdiecage? My dead grandma could drive better than you.”</p><p>Amy turned, incensed. Taylor turned around too. She felt the need to yell at the third passenger, because having three people in the cart at any one time was against PGA regulations, and going against PGA regulations was a direct violation of proper golf etiquette. </p><p>What was she saying? Taylor blinked once. It was sloppy of her to lose focus so close to the start of the tournament—this was not how pro-golfers handled themselves. Perhaps she should have found a better caddie. One who specialized in sports psychology would have been nice. Was Coach still available? No, that wouldn’t do. She despised him and his greasy forehead, and the unscrupulous actions he’d taken since his liberation from the Birdiecage.</p><p>Speaking of caddies, hers had finally found an even speed.</p><p>“Eyes on the road,” Taylor warned.</p><p>“I was looking at the road!” Amy said, turning her head from the backseat.</p><p>“No, you weren’t,” Taylor replied.</p><p>“Why would I be looking at the back seat?” Amy said, hands briefly flying off the wheel as she threw them up in frustration. “There’s only two of us in the cart!”</p><p>“I’m aware. It’s against PGA regulations to have any more.”</p><p>“Hands on the wheel,” said the third passenger of the cart.</p><p>Amy swiveled to the back.</p><p>“Eyes on the road,” Taylor reminded her.</p><p>“They were!” Amy screamed, and did a little butt scooch until she faced forward.</p><p>The transition from cement to grass was a bumpy one, jostling all two passengers of the golf cart as they barreled onto the green at a whopping four miles per hour. </p><p>“Well, this certainly isn’t allowed,” Taylor said. “PGA regulations state that—”</p><p>“I know what they say,” said Amy, who was visibly sweating underneath her frumpy, tweed golf hat, “I’ve read the handbook.”</p><p>A voice came from the backseat. </p><p>“Did the handbook tell you not to drive into bunkers?” </p><p>“Eyes on the road,” Taylor said.</p><p>“They were!” </p><p>By now, Taylor was feeling mildly concerned, like when you hit the golf ball into the mini-golf windmill, and it’s your final shot, but the golf ball does not come out the other side. She wanted to warn her caddie that they were getting dangerously close to a nearby sand bunker, but her caddie did not seem to take well to pressure.</p><p>“We’re going too fast,” Taylor said instead, which was blatantly untrue. They were moving well under the maximum speed limit, at a whopping four miles per hour.</p><p>“Speed isn’t the problem here,” said the third passenger. “Ames just sucks at driving. Also, we’re heading straight for that bunker over there.”</p><p>“Eyes on the road,” Taylor reminded her caddie. <em> Really </em>, what was it about their rearview that drove Amy to turn away, rather than drive the damn cart?</p><p>Amy clenched the wheel tighter, and if her hands weren’t covered in regulation caddie gloves and tattoos in creepy tribute to the sister whose life she had ruined, you probably could’ve seen how the skin whitened there from cut-off circulation. Maybe the cameras will pick it up. The cart inched towards the bunker.</p><p>“Maybe you should try steering.” </p><p>“How hard is it to look where you’re driving?” Taylor asked. “Hit the brakes or steer away from the bunker, before you sink us like a PGA-regulation golf ball.”</p><p>Amy made an unintelligible noise, four parts rage and one part incompetent driving, and the cart continued on its path forward.</p><p>It was rather anticlimactic, when they finally hit the change in terrain. Just a small bump, less than the transition off the cart path, and the wheels stopped spinning.</p><p>“Good job, dipshit,” said the third passenger. </p><p>“We’re not even moving, and you still can’t keep your eyes forward.” Taylor felt frustration creeping in. It was bad enough when one sank balls in the bunker—what would the association say when they saw that the whole cart had been trapped?</p><p>Two people looked on from the fairway, and Taylor thought she recognized their faces. Members of the Cauldron Country Club, no doubt, shirking off duty while the man in gold destroyed the green around them. She pulled herself out of the wreckage, and got up to talk to them.</p><p>Six minutes later, Doormaker and the Clairvoyant had joined their party. </p><p>“You’re a terrible caddie,” Taylor said, and gave a meaningful look in Amy’s direction so that she knew she was speaking to her. One had to wonder how good she was at eye contact, if Amy couldn’t even keep her eyes on the road. “But you’ll have to do for now. Doormaker and the Clairvoyant will drive the cart.”</p><p>“Four passengers? That’s against PGA regulations!”</p><p>Taylor considered the problem. Her love for the sport was so deep, it was practically second nature to revere the traditions that governed golf. Without these needless rules, it wouldn’t even be a recognizable activity. A world without powered players was one she didn’t want to live in—to her, they were the next logical step forward for the sport. Human players held them back, and should have been relegated to spectators and audience members long ago. Even now their bureaucratic-aristocratic rulebooks stifled Taylor at every turn. </p><p>The answer dawned on her. “Maybe you just don’t love golf as much as I do. I’m willing to break the rules in order to save golf—and the world—and if more people could see it my way, we wouldn’t even be in this mess in the first place.” </p><p>Amy flapped her mouth open and closed a few times, letting all the stupid out, but did not say a word. Perhaps she had realized the irony in chastising Taylor for illegal gameplay when she was the one directly responsible for giving her performance-enhancing powers.</p><p>They all clambered into the cart. Taylor and Doormaker in the front, Amy and The Clairvoyant in the back.</p><p>“Great,” said the fifth passenger, “there goes all my back row legroom.”</p><p>Amy and the Clairvoyant sat down. If there was a person-sized space between them, neither had noticed or commented on it.</p><p>Doormaker maneuvered the vehicle out of the bunker with ease, setting them back on the golf cart path at a respectable, PGA-approved speed.</p><p>Amy leaned forward and spoke. “How did you get them to agree to help us?”</p><p>“They couldn’t say no to me—you made certain of that.”</p><p>“I what?”</p><p>“When you forced the second trigger.” </p><p>“Yeah, I remember that part.” Amy scowled. She’d been doing that a lot, lately, and it was grossly unbecoming for a caddie. Taylor really needed to look into finding a replacement. </p><p>“They can’t say no to my performance-enhancing powers,” Taylor clarified. </p><p>Not her greatest moment, asking for that upgrade, but Scion did not play by the rules, so she would not either.</p><p>“You used to control balls and clubs and equipment, and I made it so that you could control everything golf-related—what part of that lets you master people?”</p><p>Amy’s voice was frantic by now, whisper-yelling so hard that it moved Taylor’s hair. Really, she should have kept it down. The PGA had ears everywhere. </p><p>Doesn’t she know I’m always listening?</p><p>“Oh.” Taylor searched for the right words to explain. “Networking is an essential part of golf.”</p><p>“Networking?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“So you, what, made a business deal with them?”</p><p>Taylor nodded. “Yes. I networked.”</p><p>And there you have it, folks. Taylor Hebert is networking. What a sight.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Birdiecage</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She’d never cried over a news broadcast before. It made sense, in a roundabout way. She hadn’t watched much news before college. </p><p>Michaela gripped her hand tight, the two of them on the couch. Sydney was in the bathroom, taking a moment for herself. They could hear her heaving over the static speakers of their small TV set—the tiles and shower created a loud echo effect.</p><p>“I can’t believe this,” Michaela said. “I can’t believe this!”</p><p>
  <em> “And in a historic court decision, powered player Lustrum, real name Mary Chandler, is being sentenced to imprisonment in the Birdiecage. This ruling comes after years of anti-golf campaigning, which drew criticism from all sides of the political spectrum for indoctrinating and radicalizing young women—” </em>
</p><p>“Bullshit!” Michaela slammed a hand down on the laminate coffee table, sending notebooks and chewed-up pen caps flying. This table had survived a lot; poster-making, drunken-stomping, the whole nine holes. “They’re trying to infantilize anyone not directly involved. Maybe if those fuckers in the White House actually listened to our protests—”</p><p>Annette held up a hand, silencing her friend. The coverage was important. It was bullshit too, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t important.</p><p>
  <em> “Lustrum was arrested and formally charged just under three months ago, when she and an inner-circle of fellow extremists attacked the Masters and burned down the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. Two spectators' lives were lost in the blaze, along with young hopeful Daggermouth, who was competing for the first time in the “Powered Player” division.” </em>
</p><p>“Young hopeful?” Michaela scoffed. “The guy was forty-eight years old! They’re so fucking biased. Not one clip of Lustrum telling people to stay away from the flames, or her hauling players back from the smoke.”</p><p>Annette watched her rave, dispassionate. This development had been months in the making. Nothing she nor Michaela said was new.</p><p>“What did you expect? They’ve always hated Lustrum. She had it all and she walked away, and it drives them nuts.”</p><p>Annette’s classmates in high school had hated her for similar reasons. To be skilled at golf was a blessing—in their eyes, actively throwing away that gift was an act of arrogant childishness. </p><p>She could only imagine what it would be like for a parahuman, when they were given the exact abilities so coveted by average players around the world. Lustrum didn’t always talk about what it was like when she played, though she’d hinted at it at some of her smaller rallies. She hadn’t liked the way her skill came at the expense of others, or that officials saw no problems with that. </p><p>“I hate them all, Annette. I really do.”</p><p>“So do I.” </p><p>But what was there to do? Powerlessness wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation, but now it boxed her in at every corner, new and intimate and awful. Their local chapter had halved in size since Lustrum’s arrest, and campus had officially banned them from meeting last week under threat of expulsion. </p><p>“What are our next steps?” </p><p>Classic Michaela. Always itching for action. She could’ve been president of their little group by next year’s time, if Jazmin hadn’t been sent home before she could pass on the mantle. She was smart, but more importantly, she was angry. It was what had first caught Annette’s attention at a club fair two years ago, and she hadn’t regretted it since. Even shy Sydney joined up. Here she was now, vomiting her guts out in a teary panic.</p><p>Annette considered the question.</p><p>Michaela didn’t wait for her before continuing. “The Bay Club Course is under extra security right now, but I think we could still sneak in if we tried. Though it might be better to wait until Lustrum gets back out, so we can coordinate with other demonstrators. I’ll reach out to Virginia Tech and Brown, see what the girls there are getting up to.”</p><p>Maybe it would’ve worked. Maybe other groups were already mobilizing. Maybe they’d stage protests in the next few days, and millions of dollars worth of equipment and turf would be destroyed.</p><p>Somehow, Annette doubted any of it would matter. The moment had passed. Two civilians and a parahuman player had lost their lives because of their own pig-headedness, and Lustrum was blamed. </p><p>A tiny part of her resented their brave leader, but she was unsure if it came from deep within the well of her very being, or if the thought was a seed planted by the Media and the Man and Society. She wished oppressive regimes were more whimsical in nature, as they appeared to be in the picture books of her youth. Something like space worms that could plug into her brain and tell her they hated feminism and loved golf, and it would be better to leave Lustrum and this radical chapter of her life behind. People had been <em> killed </em>.</p><p>“No,” Annette said.</p><p>“No?”</p><p>“There is no ‘when Lustrum gets out.’ Michaela, the Birdiecage is a life sentence! She’s not coming back for us.”</p><p>“Then we break her out before she gets there!” </p><p>All that conviction blinded her. It made Annette envious.</p><p>“She’s already in transport. Dragon took her away the second the judge made their decision. Lustrum’s rotting away in some cell in a mountain in the Canadian wilderness—we’re never going to see her face again.”</p><p>“Are you fucking with me, Annette?”</p><p>Annette looked away. She knew how this went. You dismantle the rebellion in big chunks first, then you wear the stragglers down. Golf talk, day in and day out, pro-golf celebrations across the country and in your hometown, which get your family and friends excited, and you’re inundated with the sport. You stop saying the name Lustrum in public, for fear of punishment, then you stop saying it in private, because you forget. Those who keep their heads up go down accordingly.</p><p>She didn’t want to see Michaela get hurt, but her friend wouldn’t stop unless someone told her to. Annette realized, then and there, that she would have to be that person.</p><p>“It’s over,” Annette said. “Just let it go.”</p><p>“Don’t tell me what to do!”</p><p>“Please.” Somewhere along the way, she’d stopped crying. It only helped her resolve. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”</p><p>Michaela stood up.</p><p>“Don’t try to make this about me.” She ran a hand through her hair. “God. Fuck you. I should’ve expected this from rich little Annie. The moment you have something to lose, you’re out.”</p><p>Annette didn’t argue. She could take the anger, if it meant holding Michaela back from something worse. She had a point, in a way. Annette had everything a girl could want, yet she’d been invested in Lustrum’s movement. There were questions to be asked. Motives to interrogate.</p><p>“What? Nothing to say?”</p><p>“What’s the point?” She’d gotten exactly what she needed out of this conversation. It was the best thing for both of them.</p><p>“Get out. Get out of my fucking apartment.”</p><p>Annette got up to leave. “If you need anything…”</p><p>“I don’t.”</p><p>And Annette had the strangest feeling that she wouldn’t. They’d both find a way to move on, on their own. Yeah. There was something nice about that. She and Michaela had met through the Anti-Golf Movement, so it made sense for them to part that way too.</p><p>Annette didn’t think much more of it for a while after. Her parents had asked her to come home that weekend to celebrate her father’s birthday, and she’d agreed. She had the whole outfit picked out and everything. Between that and schoolwork and promises to study with the clueless guy in her writing seminar—Danny, she thought his name was? She’d have to double-check that—she’d be plenty busy. It was easy not to miss and mourn when you had other things to distract you.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>There are places even the Green cannot reach. </p><p>It is always in high demand, but there are other factors to keep in mind. For example, New York has a space problem. The gridlocked streets of the urban jungle have committed the unforgivable crime of being golfer-unfriendly. There simply is no room to sustain the amount of course required to service such a dense population.</p><p>Historically, the privileged few have gotten around this. Legend, I believe, had the dream of opening a gay golf course, which is like a gay bar in that half of its attendees are not actually a part of that community (gay golfers, that is) but come for bachelorette parties and Sunday afternoon soirées for the daughters of Fortune 500 CEOs. </p><p>He had gotten the idea after reminiscing with some old friends, the kind that he’d left behind for a career of superheroism and world tournaments. They were native New Yorkers from the now gentrified Greenwich Village, but had once had a connection to (golf) Ball Culture. Legend, feeling out of touch with a movement he had never participated in nor taken an interest in before, wanted to help.</p><p>The project was a success. Four blocks of rent-controlled, government housing were torn down, and six months later, New York’s first gay green went up.</p><p>No one wrote about the people who scrambled to find housing. Grassroots campaigns pale in the face of Protectorate/PGA funding.</p><p>But you probably know the names of some of the evicted tenants. People crumble under the pressure of country club fees and other costs of living, and they get desperate and scared. The unlucky ones end up on TV, where we can watch them use powers in national and world tournaments, and worship them for it. They throw themselves into the sport until it’s the only thing they live and breath for. They finance more golf courses. I get to watch more players.</p><p>The Green has a hard time thriving in New York’s concrete complex. Still, I find my way in.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>Everything about her posture was perfect: back straight, weight centered, chin up. She had all the tools in her arsenal to secure success. </p><p>Canary took a mighty swing, arms following through after the wooden driver.</p><p>A stroke so mighty, so majestic, that nothing happened. A whiff.</p><p>“A whiff,” Taylor announced. “Disappointing.” </p><p>Canary crumpled, face puckering like she was about to cry. </p><p>Really, if she’s going to act this way, she might as well go back to frisbee golf or pee-wee golf. Go play with all the other dead babies.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Canary said. “They don’t have a golf course in the Birdiecage.”</p><p>Taylor scoffed. “You let something as minor as a life sentence stop you from golfing? What an amateur move. True golf fans don’t let financial and physical barriers stop them from joining a country club.”</p><p>She had no pity for Canary. For as long as Taylor remembered, she’d been barred, discouraged, and bullied out of playing golf. But here she was, worlds away from home, preparing to play against a power far greater and more highly ranked than herself. If she could do that, why couldn’t everyone else?</p><p>Taylor stood back, letting Canary recompose herself. They’d try again. She needed Canary to heckle potential competitors, or to network where Taylor couldn’t.</p><p>Let’s get a close-up on this. Canary is about to take her second swing after an embarrassing miss. We’ve seen her play well before, but I think this right here is exactly the kind of issue you get when you put a rookie on a course with the pros. She’s got a great stroke, the kind they could write textbooks about. But when it comes down to it, the nerves get in the way, and all that technique falters. </p><p>Some commentators were speculating that she might have put her time in the Birdiecage to good use. There’s plenty of heavy-hitters in there—like Lung and Glaistig Uaine, who we saw play earlier today—Canary could have gotten coaching from any of them. </p><p>And here she goes, using the wooden driver again… she swings… and ooh, that’s a rather weak stroke. We should be seeing at least 250 yards from a player like Paige Mcabee. </p><p>I’d say the results of this round are already decided. Taylor Hebert is moving on to the semifinals.</p><p>“Amy, driver,” Taylor ordered. </p><p>Amy began to pull the club from the bag, which she had dragged through the ground to get here, then stopped.</p><p>“Don’t you want my recommendation?”</p><p>“No,” Taylor said. “We’re teeing off. Were you this bad when you caddied for your sister?”</p><p>Amy frowned, handing her the club. </p><p>There were those who didn’t have determination, Taylor thought, like Canary, who spent a little time in jail, and let her form go to waste. And then there were those like Amy, who squandered every opportunity given to them. How much money had gone into her formal training? Golf was big business, moreso for legacy players like the New Wave team, yet it wasn’t until Jack Slash’s pickup game that Amy had actually taken an active part in the sport. She hadn’t made good use of her time in prison either. </p><p>Shame. Taylor had grown up on stories of Amy’s father, a man who’d ruled Brockton Green with a bone club and an iron fist.</p><p>She stepped up to the tee, and went to grab her club with two hands.</p><p>Her right hand missed. Taylor frowned, rolled her shoulder, and grabbed again. </p><p>She missed.</p><p>Was it a depth perception problem? Before she’d gotten glasses, she’d had problems with connecting object to motion. There was a time, back in third grade, when Mom had signed her up for badminton classes, where she couldn’t seem to hit the shuttlecock with the racket. </p><p>It didn’t really matter much, because the city-wide league was composed of one team with seven players (including Taylor), so there wasn’t much urgency when it came to competition. The optometrist prescribed glasses after Taylor complained, and her newfound accuracy led the team to a record-breaking season—in theory, at least. They never actually played anyone. Eventually, Taylor asked to quit in order to join Emma in Girl Scouts. Her mom acquiesced. The team dissolved.</p><p>No, it couldn’t have been her eyes. She'd switched to contacts, and she’d remembered to put those on this morning before changing into her polo shirt. Were her senses out of whack too? No, the range had been shortened, as she’d noted earlier, but something was still off.</p><p>Oh, what’s this? Hebert’s encountered a genuine handicap! Her arm was blown off earlier this week when Scion pulled out a famous trick shot, which we’d only seen performed in New Delhi about a year prior. </p><p>She’s better off than all the other competitors who had their heads knocked off, but PGA regulations state that no player may use more or less than the rulebook two arms to play. They’re notoriously stingy about this requirement, barring well known powered players like the now-late King of Cups and Crawler from competing in standard tournaments. </p><p>I’m eager to see what our dark horse will do to get out of this one.</p><p>“I can’t play,” Taylor said, dumbfounded. </p><p>Around her, stray balls and clubs began to quiver. There was no one-handed stroke in golf. It simply didn’t put enough power or control into the swing, and golf wasn’t the type of sport that made room for things like disability. Why should it? That and economic barriers and country club quotas were necessary, in order to keep the undeserving out. If a player was determined enough, they could substitute in with a tinker-made arm, but that itself required money and connections. </p><p>This couldn’t be happening, and yet it was. Taylor had risen above adversity, time and time again. She’d faced down the Ironbringers that ripped up the Newfoundland Green and stomped Phoenix into a puddle. She’d gone toe-to-toe with Jack Slash. She’d disobeyed her own mom’s wishes to learn to play, and put her father behind her to seize the Green. But all it took was that missing arm, and Taylor was out of the game.</p><p>The fairway forward seemed more shrouded than ever before. </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Course Correction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The caller I.D. told her it was her mother. She reluctantly picked up the phone.</p><p>“Hello?”</p><p>“Annette, you’re here! Good. I’ve called the house twice in the past week, but there’s been no response.”</p><p>She knew. Her mother liked to leave these rambling, unfocused voicemails, which were excruciating to parse. Annette would have felt more guilty about deliberately ignoring her parents, but every conversation she had with them inevitably turned into an interrogation about her life choices and Danny and the way she was raising Taylor, which was right where Annette drew the line. She made an effort to talk to them once per month. </p><p>What her mother wanted this time around was easy to guess.</p><p>“Do you have plans for little Taylor’s birthday?”</p><p>“Yes,” Annette said, “some of her friends are sleeping over on Friday night, and we bought a chocolate cake from the grocery store—did you want to come over to watch her blow out the candles?”</p><p>“No, no, your father and I have a club meeting to get to that night.”</p><p>They could have a club meeting every night, if they wanted. They were comfortably retired, and that was how the country club membership worked. </p><p>Her mother was calling to ask about Taylor, but she didn’t really want to see her. Kids were messy and rude and bad at golf, and until they could get better at it, they would be seen and not heard, and sometimes not even seen at all. When they got older, they would be invited to events and paraded around like polo-vest wearing dolls. The kids that wouldn’t comply were as good as grass-trimmings.</p><p>“Well,” Annette said, “you can still send her a gift.”</p><p>Her mother hummed, the rumble turning to static over the receiver.</p><p>“I was thinking we could take her out on Sunday. Just us and her. It’s been so long since we’ve seen our granddaughter.”</p><p>And there it was. </p><p>“No,” Annette replied. “You can come over on Friday night. Saturday works too, if you happen to have room in that busy schedule of yours.”</p><p>“She’s of age, Annette! Are you really going to deny her this? It’s cruel.”</p><p>Annette felt the pull of a quiet rage, something she’d developed over the years as that place to go when the entire world conspired to cut her down. She knew she wasn’t alone in this, but the spaces for people like her had grown smaller and smaller with each passing year, from the dissolution of Lustrum’s groups to the creation of the Paragolf Response Team and their entrenchment in American society. The events that did shake up the norms—Nilbog claiming the Ellisburg course, Hero’s death at the seventh hole, the emergence of Ironbringers—were all destructive, awful tragedies. Annette knew the hard way that it was the wrong avenue for going about change, but every piece of middle ground had given way to grass or death. </p><p>The best she had left were the apathetic, like Danny, too disenfranchised to enact change beyond his own underpaid daydreams. She loved the man dearly for it.</p><p>“My daughter will not golf,” Annette said. “Not today, not tomorrow, and not for the rest of her life if I have anything to say about it.”</p><p>“You’re selfish,” her mother said, all that fake warmth now gone from her voice. “At least let her choose.” </p><p>But Annette would not. </p><p>“Next time, just text. I don’t want to hear your voice.”</p><p>And with that, she hung up the phone. She had errands to run. Ordering the cake, grading papers, and picking up Taylor from school. With any luck, the busywork would give her a chance to think about this impending problem. After all, it was easy enough to tell her mother Taylor wouldn’t be learning how to golf once she turned eight. </p><p>Convincing Taylor would be much, much harder.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>The kids were all demons, every single one of them, and Annette sent a silent thank-you to whatever indifferent force governing this world—disregarding the golden man—that Taylor was not like that. Annette was a teacher, but she’d never specialized in children’s education, and she had more respect for her peers than ever before. </p><p>They ran around and screamed and tried to putt Danny’s snowglobe collection with branches found outside. Only one had broken, thank god, but it was just the London one, not something limited edition like Kyushu or Phoenix. To make matters worse, the kids seemed to be organized. Annette would pull a gremlin away from the open laundry machine, only for one to try drawing on the table with crayons. They’d wait till Danny was busy shutting and locking the open windows to try and backflip off the couch. Taylor herself would get caught up in the action, then reverse course when Annette sternly reminded her daughter that she knew better.</p><p>Idly, Annette wondered if Emma was behind it. She and Taylor were inseparable, and their young friendship endearingly sweet, but the girl had a face so guileless, Annette could only suspect something was amiss. She was one of those girls. Annette knew, because she had been one too. The kind that seized control of the group project, or joined the student council because they said they wanted to change things, but secretly just craved lording their power over the rest of the students. </p><p>Annette still regretted those days, and understood, intimately, the pains of growing out of it. She doubted a kid like Emma would have the strength to do the same, and imagined nightmare scenarios where the redhead dragged Taylor down with her. </p><p>Was it normal to feel this sort of animosity towards a child? Probably not. The Barneses, her parents, were insufferable though. They’d been on an all-caviar diet lately, and Zoe couldn’t stop talking about it at work. Working in the Provost’s office, she was indirectly Annette’s boss. It hadn’t been so bad, at first, when the image of Zoe in her mind was the sweet and eager underclassmen ready to join up for Lustrum’s cause. </p><p>They’d fallen out of touch, like Michaela and Sydney, but Annette had always felt a kinship with Zoe despite not knowing her too well. They’d had similar backgrounds, had gone to the same all-girls golfing academies and private courses, so Annette had even more respect for the girl who could renounce it all.</p><p>It seemed renouncing things was the only thing she was truly good at. A few years down the line, she’d resurfaced in Annette’s life as a Country Club Caricature, whose big hair must have subsumed her entire personality. </p><p>Maybe she looked like a traitor too, to people like Michaela. Annette didn’t like to dwell on those things.</p><p>She pulled up the covers, which Danny had tucked in for her ahead of time. He did that every night, knowing that she liked the feeling of tight sheets when she went to sleep. </p><p>He’d already settled on the other side of the bed, reading glasses on and a crossword puzzle in his lap. He looked old, but not in a bad way, and Annette felt a tinge of excitement about their years to come, and the many ways she’d get to see him change over time. A dash of salt-and-pepper in his hair would look rugged and distinguished.</p><p>“All asleep?” he asked.</p><p>“All asleep,” she confirmed. They’d already gone through the sleepover cycle of whispering “is anyone up?” before breaking into giggles, then growing silent again before eventually succumbing to the sugar withdrawal.</p><p>“Whew. Thanks for staying up to check.”</p><p>She smiled. “No problem. I know it’s been a bad day for you. I’m really sorry about the snow globes.”</p><p>He waved a hand. “We can always buy more.”</p><p>“Yes, but they were yours.”</p><p>She’d seen him run to the bathroom for a bit after the glass first shattered, and she’d ushered the kids out of the room so Danny could clean up the hazard. Before that, she suspected, he’d taken a couple moments to calm down and breathe and count backwards from eighteen. He hated getting mad around her and Taylor.</p><p>Danny closed the book of crosswords, which she’d given him for Christmas last year. It was a challenge to find ones whose theme wasn't golf terminology. They’d both found the puzzles to be much harder, when they weren’t drawing from such a small and specific bank of words. </p><p>“What’s the plan for tomorrow?” he said.</p><p>Annette blew a strand of hair away from her face.</p><p>“We make pancakes in the morning, then send the terrors packing.”</p><p>He laughed. “And what about our terror?”</p><p>“Our little terror will receive a stern lecture about not caving to peer pressure, and then she’ll have to sit in her room to reflect for a bit, but she can come back out when she apologizes to you. She still gets to pick dinner and what movie to watch tonight.”</p><p>“What’re the odds she picks <em> Caddyshack?” </em></p><p>Annette rolled her eyes. “It’s not going to happen.”</p><p>He started, “But the gopher puppet—”</p><p>“She’s too old for the gopher puppet!” Annette poked him in the shoulder. Danny was doing that cute, sexy pout he knew she liked. What was it about this pitiful man that drove her insane? “Besides, I think any interest in the movie at all was snuffed out the moment she realized how uncool it was to enjoy something her dad watches.”</p><p>“I’m cool,” he insisted, like an uncool person would.</p><p>“I don’t mind. The further away she is from that evil sport, the better off we all are. I just don’t see why you like it so much. It’s propaganda for Big Golf, and we both know it.”</p><p>Danny pouted some more, but this wasn’t the playful pout. It was the deliberate one he used when his feelings were hurt, which made Annette feel bad. Mostly she felt bad because she still thought it was attractive. </p><p>“It’s <em>good </em> propaganda, and if I acknowledge that it’s propaganda, it’s not effective anymore. I like that dancing gopher.”</p><p>Annette scoffed. “That’s not how any of that works. I should know. I’m an English professor.”</p><p>“I’d trust your opinion more if you were a propaganda professor.”</p><p>She settled back down among the pillows. They’d just been joking around, but the entire topic depressed her. Golf was pervasive, like a flea on a dog, and it was always there, even when you didn’t notice it. Annette had spent many sleepless nights wondering if she was morally in the wrong for choosing to work for Bay State University and its ninety-seven percent golfing student body, and for raising a family when she could have carried on the cause.</p><p>Did it make her an agent of oppression, to buy groceries from Swing-And-Shop, knowing that their parent company owned courses in thirty-six states? What did it mean when she tended to the garden in the backyard, which symbolically reflected the intensely manicured and landscaped course of the golfer elite? </p><p>Some days she felt like she was ignorant of so much. Other days she felt like she understood it all, which made it all the more horrifying that she chose this life of domestic normalcy.</p><p>“I’m going to go to bed now, okay?” she said, lying about being able to sleep.</p><p>“Alright,” Danny said, and kissed her forehead and shut out the lights.</p><p>They lay there in silence for a while, the two of them, both pretending to be asleep and failing miserably. It was a bit like Taylor’s sleepover, without the giggles or crush confessions.</p><p>Danny broke first.</p><p>“Hey Annette? Are you awake?”</p><p>She made sure to make her voice sound a little husky, because she still didn’t want to admit to being awake, but also because she knew Danny found it sexy too.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“I can take Taylor to the course on Thursday. They let us golf for free, and it’s a week-night, so it’s not quite as busy. If we don’t make a big deal out of it, it would probably be fine. Like watching <em> Caddyshack.” </em></p><p>The thought had crossed Annette’s mind too. It would have been great if Taylor’s embarrassment about her father extended to nontrivial things, or that if they gave her the quiet celebration she’d been begging for, all of this would die down—like the booger-eating phase or the rebellious streak she’d probably grow into. </p><p>But that simply wasn’t the case. It would be a big deal to Taylor because it was a big deal to everyone. They’d talk about it at school, and they’d have mandatory PE classes on it instead of the normal health/reproductive education courses they should’ve been given, and slowly, like a noose, it would tighten and tighten, and Taylor would just be another golf fan, personality subsumed by the cruel and classist sport. Annette’s heart ached to think of her fun, sweet, smart girl that way.</p><p>“You know we can’t,” she told Danny. “We’re going to be doing Taco Thursdays from now on—no playdates, no grading papers, no working late at the course. She won’t be allowed to go because it’s family time.”</p><p>Danny shifted. She imagined the planes of his face in the darkness, which were changing every day with time and stress and the wear-and-tear of human existence. It made it impossible to truly memorize his shape.</p><p>“And what about every other day of the week? How are we going to make excuses then?”</p><p>“We tell her the truth,” Annette said. “We can’t afford to pay for a country club membership between your salary and my student loans.”</p><p>“That’s only part of the truth.”</p><p>“It’s enough—you’re the union leader for the golf course workers, and they don’t even pay you enough to afford the services you provide. It’s wrong, and Taylor should know it.”</p><p>“She’s eight, Annette! She doesn’t understand things like capital. It still won’t be an excuse for this Sunday.”</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Annette said, “I’ve got a plan.”</p><p>This is what she’d spent all these months planning for. Hundreds of hours of research, of clandestine meetings, of navigating her way through unscrupulous channels, and Annette had found what could replace the golf-filled void in her daughter’s life.</p><p>Another sport.</p><p>They’d start with football, and if that didn’t work out, badminton. </p><p>Both had an ugly and depressing reputation, but to Annette, they appeared as shining beacons gleaming through the night, the last twin bastions of hope against the endless tide of golf and all its societal poisons.</p><p>One day, Taylor would see that too.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>In 1997, the city of Phoenix, Arizona mounted an ad campaign for the Ironbringer Leviathan to visit their city. His visit to Oslo, Norway one year prior was a shocking thing, but after the city had drained away the excess, they were left with a green more verdant and rich than the now-developed Amazon rainforests of South America. </p><p>Leviathan wasn’t like his older sibling, who brought fire and smoke and nothing but ruin on his victory tours. Leviathan was the rainmaker—to have that presence in any arid place would be a huge boon.</p><p>That’s not to say that Phoenix had not exhausted other options. They pumped in water from far-off mountain springs, but it takes green to keep a green, and the city nearly spiralled into economic ruin after a particularly droughty year. They’d gone weird and bizarre, with dirt courses and street golf, but it just didn’t feel the same. They even tried artificial turf, but the plastic melted in the hot summer sun, and an Arizona retiree died from the fumes. The bereaved family sued the city, and there went the rest of the year’s water budget. </p><p>This was the point that they decided to ask Leviathan to visit. They had no clue how, of course, to get the creature to visit, but it was probably a powered player, so they did what they would do for any other recruitment.</p><p>Local businesses and city government came together to offer advertising incentives, including a hollowed-out hotel for Leviathan to live at, with amenities like house-cleaning and continental breakfasts. They offered exclusive hours on the city’s biggest course, and free training from the best coaches around, and equipment maintained by the state’s best tinkers. One enterprising parahuman even constructed a giant golf cart intended to carry Leviathan’s weight, not that it mattered much—he was fast and large, and navigating an acres-wide course wouldn’t be an issue.</p><p>The world watched with bated breath. If there was any measure of success here, it meant other unfortunate places could replicate it too, and the world could grow closer than ever before to their dream of green as far as the eye could see.</p><p>Leviathan came, eventually. </p><p>It’s still a wonder how he found his way that far inland. The day he showed up he was greener than their dying grass, and people cheered as rain came down in buckets on their desert community.</p><p>I suppose it hadn’t occurred to them that grass can be overwatered too. Phoenix had called off all the responding powered players—this wasn’t Behemoth, <em> damn it </em>, they had asked for Leviathan to come—so when the rain didn’t let up, it was already too late. Phoenix, Arizona lies still in a watery grave in the middle of the desert, where brackish water prevents even native wildlife from growing. </p><p>You would think that was the point when humans realized that not every power serviced the sport, but it took two more floods—Kyushu and Newfoundland—for small communities to stop with the ad campaigns. Even now, the most ardent of believers carry on with their worship, breaking off into lawless cults. They’re enamoured with the idea of a game that plays by different rules, where violence is a mainstay and victory comes at the cost of another player’s life.</p><p>When the third Ironbringer came, they thought she was an angel. Scion played too, so why couldn’t she? The players at the Lausanne Open called her song a blessing, right up until the point that they stopped talking and began screaming instead. When the victor of the tournament was mobbed and torn to shreds, his remains were virtually unrecognizable, beyond two whole ears shoved into the ninth hole cup. Did he still hear the song too?</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>A little bit of schmoozing never hurt anyone, but Taylor still disliked doing it. She’d been so graciously gifted with these networking powers, and she wasn’t above worming her way around the rules, yet asking for things was a last resort. It invoked memories of a dusty youth, where Emma was her access point to all things golf, and Taylor had to rely on charity from those above her social circle.</p><p>No doubt, Dragon wouldn’t see it that way. She was different, like turf pantomiming real grass. Dragon was full of little contradictions like that: She was the warden of the Birdiecage, yet one of the most active campaigners for cheater reform. She’d been designed to be the perfect player, yet remained content with developing high-tech clubs and caddying for other prominent players. Sometimes it felt like she was the best of them, even though Dragon had never even been a human to begin with. </p><p>Taylor simply needed to ask for the arm replacement, and Dragon would deliver. She was compassionate like that, and their bond went deeper than most. She wondered if the latent maternal feelings were on her end, or Dragon’s. Probably Dragon’s. </p><p>All she had to do was ask, and yet—</p><p>“Let’s play a round.”</p><p>Dragon frowned at her. She knew about the injury.</p><p>“Taylor, I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”</p><p>Taylor waved the 5-iron in her left hand, ignoring the way her hand shook slightly from the weight. She shored up her grip with her power, thankful that even though her range was almost gone, she could still count on it when necessary.</p><p>“I was there when Colin’s arm got cut off. I picked up the nanothorn wedge myself after he went down, to protect us from Leviathan.”</p><p>Dragon wouldn’t meet her eyes.</p><p>“Did he ask you to play, after that happened? I know they gave him benefits a criminal under arrest wouldn’t have, and that you could still probably talk to him.”</p><p>“He asked,” Dragon said, sounding ashamed.</p><p>Taylor pressed on. Hurt feelings didn’t matter when the fate of the sport was on the line. “And what did you say?”</p><p>“I agreed. He could barely stand, and I was worried he’d rip his stitches, but I knew he’d just hurt himself worse if I told him no. We were setting up when Mannequin broke in.” She trailed off, but Taylor had a good idea where the rest of the story went. She’d fought the tinker too, recalling the way his divot-laden, plastic skin felt underneath her fingertips. </p><p>“Tattletale warned everyone what happened. I’m under orders not to engage with you.”</p><p>“Just one round,” Taylor insisted. “If I win, you give me a replacement arm.”</p><p>Dragon shook her head. “I can’t.”</p><p>“I’ll go first. Whoever sinks the ball first wins.”</p><p>Dragon drew her 8-iron and took aim.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>The woman in blue curses, and they exchange business cards. It seems she has a sense for networking herself. Taylor is better, of course.</p><p>I’ve never been interested in Earth Aleph—the broadcasts from there don’t include nearly enough golf. It’s a niche sport, relegated to the off-hours on ESPN alongside table tennis and water polo. Me and many other announcers just can’t get our feet in the door.</p><p>The place the woman in blue has claimed, though, is different. They speak English as a second language, and the native-born players are weak. It doesn’t matter all that much. The woman in blue has single-handedly turned their infant culture around, and the green here is lush and all-encompassing.</p><p>Taylor admires it too, not that she admits it aloud. For her it’s another place to protect from the Warrior’s desecration, too densely populated to avoid his sportscast gaze for long. She drags the woman in blue along with her, ignorant of the ways that the disappearance of their dictator will drive Shin to disruption and bloodshed. It doesn’t matter to me. We play a numbers game, Taylor and I, where hitting under par counts for far more than a scant billion lives. Just like golf balls, a player can always be replaced.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>Taylor despised the man known as Coach. His glasses were always slightly fogged up, and the sun reflected off his balding scalp in a way that made her want sunglasses, and despite the lack of presentation, he was a very real and very present threat.</p><p>She would have given him the Elite treatment a few days ago, but unfortunately, she was in a time crunch, and locating an Ironbringer or some equally destructive force was out of the option.</p><p>His drone-people had computers lined up along the spectator stands, running complex stats programs and predictive sports software. He’d had time to change at some point, out of the Birdiecage sweats and into a polo shirt. </p><p>Taylor had no respect for these backup plans and failsafe measures—did they really think modeling tournament outcomes would stop Scion? Of course not. Just like the Cauldron Country Club, they were stumbling for excuses. Coach had no true plan, but if he could make it look like did, then he could seize power amidst the chaos of the game.</p><p>It was people like this who had ruined the sport for her mother. </p><p>“I was wondering when you’d show up,” he said. Lisa must’ve gotten word out to him too. Taylor felt a stab of betrayal at the realization, but shoved it down. None of them understood.</p><p>“I’m not here to talk,” Taylor said. No doubt, he’d try to stall until someone with more front-of-the-line experience could come and get her. She wondered if they knew about Dragon yet. The aimbot could have been a big help to Coach’s so-called “efforts,” but she’d been in the way. Taylor needed that arm and so she’d dismantled her friend. She’d done worse for less.</p><p>Coach eyed a bucket of golf balls nearby, which were slowly rolling closer to him. Quickly, he kicked a ball away and the connection cut out.</p><p>“Somehow, I doubt that. No offense intended.” He held out his hands at that last part, the whisper of a smile on his face.</p><p>“I need Trickster.” There, blunt and to the point. As much as Taylor loved the sport, these social customs drained her. The world would have been a much better place if players could just play.</p><p>Coach tutted under his breath. “He won’t want to go with you.”</p><p>“I just need to talk to him. It’s alright—our teams used to play together sometimes.”</p><p>“I heard. He was very torn up about the way you crushed his girlfriend at the 18-hole.”</p><p>Taylor suppressed a scowl, drained by this conversation and the circles Coach seemed intent on talking in. </p><p>“If I could have sent them both to prison, I would have,” she said, unapologetically. “Noelle was a murderer and Trickster was a cheater. I don’t care how many golfing RPGs and simulators they played back home, they were a threat to Earth Bet and deserved to be put down.”</p><p>The networking wasn’t working. Taylor was disappointed, but not surprised. It hadn’t worked on Dragon either, but if between the two situations, she had to choose one that went bloody, it would have been this one. Too bad Coach would bare his throat before that ever became necessary.</p><p>The golf ball he’d kicked out of range began rolling again, slow and picking up speed as it moved down the fairway. An entire cart came with it. After a few moments, Coach took notice and paled.</p><p>“But your range—” </p><p>Taylor smiled. The woman in blue—Golfess—was doing her job. Her telekinesis powers were proving themself useful in spades. </p><p>“So about Trickster…”</p><p>He threw up his hands.</p><p>“Just take him—I trust you’ll leave me alone?”</p><p>Taylor stepped forward and grabbed his hand, then shook it, satisfied. It was always a pleasure doing business, even when it wasn’t.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>Sleeper’s set up a lawn chair on the green. He’s sipping a glass of iced lemonade and leaning back, and the umbrella in his drink matches his shirt.</p><p>Taylor walks away, slowly.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>The Faerie Queen speaks indiscernible words to Taylor. It’s clear she’s fading fast. </p><p>I’m not sad to see all that personality go—it just means I get to talk more, and as an announcer, that’s what I live for. That and golf, naturally. It’s an endurance game. We’ll have to sit and watch them talk for a while before Taylor can start playing again. I’ll be watching closely for the moment that happens.</p><p>Her entire life story is probably written on the back of a scorecard, and while I can read some of it, there are still parts that evade me. Birthday candles on a grocery store cake, and stomping through puddles on a Friday afternoon, and other experiences like that that I can’t grab hold of because they haven’t been tainted by pain. I know Emma, and I thank her for all the ways she’s motivated my player. Every good athlete has a rival, yes? What is Emma if not that childhood reminder, lurking like a ball stuck in the bunker or the lake?</p><p>I remember Annette too, though she was gone before Taylor and I really connected. Sometimes the sting of her memory comes bubbling up at strange intervals, and Taylor plays even better for it, despite the guilt she must feel. </p><p>We’ve had a lot of good moments, Taylor and I. She loves the sweat of a good match, and popping blisters to watch them bleed, and crushing competition under heel.</p><p>It’s strange to think that I was once so close to the Warrior. I’ve manifested in thousands of ways, burning each of my hosts from inside out, then returning to him with all the others, and hurtling through space once more. </p><p>It was consistent and easy. It was boring and cold. This place and its influence on me is starting to grow, but I don’t have a word for what I used to be besides Queen Announcer, or how I used to communicate beyond calling plays. I find that it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to go back now.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Forewell</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A god dies with a club to the head and a golf ball in its throat. For the players on the green it’s done without little fanfare or emotion—they all simply played better and smarter, scoring birdies and eagles and albatrosses (or double eagles, if that’s how you preferred to say “three under par”), while this scion of the sport suffered an unfortunate double bogey at the ninth hole. </p><p>It isn’t even exciting to watch, really. The close matches, the ones where players win by the skin of their teeth, are the only games audiences care about. That’s my preference too, but I’d rather have this than no win at all.</p><p>Taylor stands over scorched grass where the Warrior’s body once existed, and in that moment, she and I are the same.</p><p>Have the players realized it yet? This is our liberation. We are free to play golf like never before, across worlds and universes we’ve now opened access to. The problem with the green was the issue of space and environment—Bet had the means to create more and they didn’t, and our players were content to roam the preexisting courses. Was it the Warrior that restrained them so? Perhaps it wanted them to compete over shrinking resources, to tear away at each other with tooth and nail and club and power alike, until all that Bermuda grass was stained red in conflict.</p><p>Such a wasted vision. I think back to the world of the woman in blue and the way she brought them golf. We could have that everywhere, if we wanted. I know I do.</p><p>Taylor wavers but she keeps her club up. The arm she claimed from Dragon has proven to be a valuable asset, though I’m sure the rules surrounding pre-coded targeting systems and enhanced strength on back swings will need to be updated. We’ll tackle that problem another day.</p><p>She handled them so elegantly on the field. Did you see it? I narrated the whole thing. Taylor Hebert has the aim and finesse of a player far more experienced, and the networking skills she demonstrated today were nothing short of exemplary. I have to wonder if she inherited any of those skills from somewhere, or if they were simply born into her like ore in the earth. Does it even matter? The people love a young prodigy.</p><p>I think first we will return to Coach. He’ll be useful for the cause. We’ll keep the ones we’ve already collected too, like the Doormaker and the Clairvoyant. Taylor beckons them to her golf cart. They follow like ants.</p><p>I am content to leave Taylor while I think through the next steps. Who will help us? Who still stands in our way? </p><p>Something nudges me towards Taylor’s team of hometown underdogs, but I brush the thought aside. There is no use for people with the power to warp and control golf carts, or to call plays with superhuman insight. We can tuck them away in some golfless dimension—Taylor doesn’t need those distractions right now.</p><p>She pulls her hair back into a ponytail, before beckoning Amy to drive. She wonders why she’s letting the woman do this again, so I bat the concern aside. Healers are in rare supply, and her aid has been indispensable to us. I feel louder and sharper than ever before. The whole world wants to listen.</p><p>What about the Cauldron Country Club? I’m sure there are some stragglers, if they managed to survive the collapsing of the headquarters. I still regret Taylor doing that. They had some beautiful indoor courses. </p><p>The cart wobbles, and Taylor gets annoyed. I move to push the feeling down, when the entire vehicle jerks, flinging its passengers out the open sides. Taylor’s fall is cushioned by the fairway, and as she picks her head up, we search for the cause.</p><p>The woman in blue glares back from twenty yards away. I don’t understand the fire in her eyes—does she not dream of worlds of golf too? Her work on Shin will be a shining model for all the places to come.</p><p>Taylor is already considering how to wrest back control. She knows the woman’s range is far longer and more powerful than hers, but if she can get within five yards, they can exchange business cards again, or shake hands, or maybe even talk about the weather, and Golfess will comply. </p><p>Taylor runs right at her. I’m not happy about her using this talent—it was something she developed before she owned entire swaths of green, when the availability of a golf cart was not guaranteed. Taylor practiced running so that she could cover those acres of a course without a sweat, and to her it is a point of pride. She’s wrong. It’s shameful and humiliating. We’re above such unsportsman-like skills.</p><p>She’s too slow. The woman in blue swings clubs in her direction, fingers shaking as the metal wraps around Taylor’s arms and legs. No doubt the gentle southward wind is contributing to her accuracy and speed. It squeezes the prosthetic so tight, the metal groans, and in an awful <em> pop </em>, falls to pieces from Taylor’s stump.</p><p>Taylor does her best to call in nearby golf balls, trying to squeeze them into the spaces between metal and flesh to give herself some breathing room, but there’s little in the way of resources. The Warrior had burnt up as much equipment as it could in its quest to destroy the sport.</p><p>Some force pulls a club away from Taylor’s throat, and I look for the unknown ally. There is no name on the leaderboards, no known professional player I can place. Taylor is struck with a moment of recognition before that passes too, and all she is left with is the lingering memory of a well-worn scarf. My frustration grows. This is not the time for sentimentality. My player was rarely prone to it before.</p><p>By now, our allies have all scattered, out of range and away from favorable business deals. Golfess threw the essential ones away with the cart, and the rest of the links snapped accordingly. Glaistig Uaine hovers far above, and in that moment, I know it was her who gave the order.</p><p>What did she say to Taylor, hours before on the green? I was so sure it didn’t matter. I <em> know </em> she loves golf as much as I, but here she is, ripping our vision to shreds.</p><p>I’d rather not narrate this next part, so I’ll try to be brief. </p><p>Bit by bit, our network is dismantled, and players are forcibly dragged away from the green. They come to when they break from our range, and I don’t quite understand the emotions that play across their faces. There are no signs of victory or defeat, but ugly, warping shapes and strange, guttural cries. I wonder if once, I used to know these expressions too.</p><p>Some of the more volatile ones step forward, intent on taking revenge. That same strange force and some other familiar faces, like Taylor’s underdogs, push back. When did they come through? Did Doormaker bring them over when he was freed from our grasp? </p><p>The green erupts into more bloodshed, and it reminds me of the Simurgh’s first appearance. I can only sit and watch as they make moves to rend Taylor limb from limb.</p><p>Something interrupts it. A figure pushes her way through the crowd, and the moment I get my eyes on her, I know I am done.</p><p>I have always hated the way she wears suits on the field. Golf is a classy sport, but to wear a tailored jacket is an offense to the art—tight seams and stiff fabric make for poor range of movement. Poor range of movement makes for bad form. </p><p>Perhaps she wears it as an open testament to her powers. Perhaps that’s what I despise most about her. Contessa does not revel in the challenge of the sport or the thrill of the game. Her performance is always bland and textbook. When she sets foot on the fairway, the game is already decided.</p><p>Contessa has come here today to win. </p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>York was always raining. London had been the same way, so it hadn’t exactly been a surprise when water came down in buckets today, but he found himself more inconvenienced than usual.</p><p>Back when he was on his girlfriend’s country club membership, it had been a good sign. Sure, they couldn’t play golf that day, but the green would be beautiful enough to make up for it the next time they went. Stuck between that and the grim fate of Arizona, Kevin took the rain every time.</p><p><em> Or not</em>, he thought, sprinting to the nearest underpass in search of shelter. The cold had a way of cutting through his jacket, and the worn fleece-lined inside soaked up water like a shamwow, and he’d spend days wringing it all out if he was lucky enough to hit a streak of clear weather.</p><p>He huddled for warmth in the concrete structure, grateful at least that the wind didn’t blow through. Unfortunately, protection from all manner of elements left the entire place smelling of piss, probably from all the drifters that came through before him. </p><p>He could stay here for the night, maybe. Dangerous to sleep out in the open, but tonight was quiet. It beat braving the rain again. Mind made up, he sat down and tugged his coat tighter. </p><p>A truck sped through a puddle and drenched Kevin in dingy brown water.</p><p>“Fuck off!” Kevin cried, giving the truck the finger. He was doubtful that the driver saw it.</p><p>He wondered if tears would make him colder, but it was too late to hold them back as his circumstances overwhelmed him—it was just some rainy weather, right? So why was he crying?</p><p>Kevin wasn’t much for dwelling on the past. Life was shit. People died and people hit you and weather didn’t change for the homeless. He’d wandered this way looking for a shelter he’d been to a year back, only to find that it had been torn down to build a mini-golf park. That was the second time Kevin had seen that happen this month.</p><p>He wiped his eyes with his coat, making his face a little wetter than before. The dirt and whatever other gunk that had been residing in the underpass tunnel stung his eyes, which made him cry, and in his attempt to wipe off, he smeared more of the hurting stuff in. On and on the cycle went.</p><p>Slowly, though, the pain underneath his eyelids faded. </p><p>Strangely enough, other pain faded too, like his sore hip and the ingrown toenail he’d been walking on for two weeks now. Kevin didn’t even stop to wonder why, as he was caught in the sensation of the burdens he’d been weighted down with lifting up and off his shoulders. It was even warm now, like tucking in beneath a few blankets or by an open fire, minus the smoke and ash that always came with.</p><p>He opened his eyes.</p><p>The man—the being—stood directly in front of him and a few inches taller. He was hovering slightly off the ground, and that gentle, warming sensation was all the more apparent, now that Kevin could see the source. A golden light.</p><p>Scion stared at him. He stared back. Kevin didn’t know how he must have looked—dirty, probably, and on the verge of wetting himself. Great first impressions all around. Scion looked back, with those blank, pale eyes and Kevin found the gaze… underwhelming.</p><p>He knew all sorts of expressions: pity, disgust, derision, and most-especially the uncomfortable neutrality of people too afraid to look him in the eyes as they crossed to the other side of the street. </p><p>Scion didn’t look at him with any of that. He seemed sad, if Kevin really stretched it, but it wasn’t an outward gaze. It was a look meant only for the golden man, and any expression directed at Kevin was just leakage.</p><p>It pissed Kevin off, so he did something very stupid.</p><p>“The fuck are you just standing there for?!” </p><p>Scion didn’t so much as blink.</p><p>“What gives you the right to sit under this damn underpass like you’re the same as me? Look at yourself! All that power and you hover around in dumps like this.” Kevin stopped to catch his breath. A little voice at the back of his head cursed and kicked at the idiot meatbag in control, but Kevin cursed and kicked right back. He was just so cold and tired and frustrated. Like an icy volcano, ready to blow.</p><p>“God!” Kevin continued, “you’re like a big bloody baby. What do you have to be sad about? Did your parents die? Did your girlfriend hit you? Do you beg for spare change, or dig spare cans out of recycling bins?”</p><p>There was no reply. He titled his golden head slightly, like he was listening. Probably to the rain drops falling, or the cars driving overhead, knowing Kevin’s luck. He was just the crazy homeless guy yelling at Christ Reborn.</p><p>There was a reason the public and state-funded courses turned people like him away. And when it came down to it, they were right. He was a loser in both life and sport.</p><p>“You think you’re sad? Then go play some fucking golf—it’s the least you can do for sorry bastards like me.”</p><p>Scion blinked once with those vacant eyes, and then he was gone. The cold and the damp came back to Kevin in increments, though his toe and his hip still felt good. Was it over? His wits had returned, and only now was it setting in what Kevin had done. He shuddered to think what a being like that would do, if it had actually bothered to listen to some man under a bridge.</p><p>He’d spend the night here, and enjoy the health he’d been gifted. He was far from the nearest electronics shop, and had no computer or radio to keep track of news by, so as Kevin drifted off, oblivious, the reports filtered in.</p><p>Scion teeing off at Royal County Down, Scion hitting two under par at Pebble Beach, Scion hauling a cart from the lake at Augusta National. He rested between games only to claim his trophies, moving on faster than a human could blink. This was the moment of union between powers and playing. To think that it came from a man who owned no clubs.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>Taylor wheezed in and out, struggling under cracked ribs. Lying out on the ground, she felt the uncanny sense of déjà vu, but could not place how or why. It hurt to be in her own head again.</p><p>“Golfffff,” she said, though what she really meant to ask was, "<em>W</em><em>here am I?"</em></p><p>“It doesn’t matter,” replied a dark figure. “There’s no one here to watch you. I thought you’d like it better that way.”</p><p>Taylor blinked. The woman could understand what she was saying? She felt a sense of relief. Taylor had always had a hard time opening up to people, and she regretted some of her burnt bridges more than others. </p><p>“Thank you,” said Taylor, though she doubted those were the words that actually came out. It was odd. She couldn’t see the woman very well at all—her glasses must have fallen off at some point—but she had dark hair and a calm disposition, which reminded Taylor of something old and familiar. She’d recalled having the feeling a few times before. With Dragon maybe, but there was a lingering feeling of guilt there.</p><p>“You broke a lot of rules today,” the woman told her. </p><p>Taylor nodded. They'd had more than two people in their cart, and she hadn’t filed for the prosthetic arm, and most of the networking she’d done today was unsavory and one-sided. She wouldn’t deny her fault in these things.</p><p>“Winning comes at a steep cost,” the woman said. Taylor got the sense she’d won many, many times before. “I started young myself, a little while after I came to your world. Do you ever think it’s strange, the way your entire lives revolve around this single sport?”</p><p>“No,” Taylor said. </p><p>Golf was as vital as oxygen or water, and she loved it more than all other vital things. Who was this woman to call that into judgement? She said herself that she had started at a young age, something Taylor herself had been deprived of. She hadn’t had to root around for pocket change to pay course fees, or bum off of friends who dropped her like deadweight. </p><p>Taylor was reminded of a point someone made to her about golf, months or even years ago—it was priced as a luxury, and existed as a necessity. Was Taylor so wrong to dream of a world where anyone and everyone could play? Powers had their place at the top of the system, of course, but all Taylor had ever aspired to do was help people. </p><p>She must have said some of this aloud, because the woman replied, “I never said I hated the  sport. Only that I regret not having a choice in the matter. Everything else I’ve done along the way has been in service of your idea. I wanted to protect the Green just as much as you do.”</p><p>Taylor knew who the woman was, though her name slipped her mind. She wondered if this was all some complex play to crush Taylor, or why she even needed to carry it out when Taylor could barely even move. She’d seen Cauldron’s work—it was unimpressive. Unfinished.</p><p>Maybe the woman understood this too, or maybe she realized there would be no changing Taylor’s mind. If she wanted absolution, she would not find it here. </p><p>Instead, she asked one last question.</p><p>“Would you do anything differently, if you had the chance?”</p><p>Taylor sighed, and it came out creaky. Her ribs really ached. </p><p>“I’d play on some different courses. Focus on certain teammates more, or pick different caddies.” She paused to catch her breath. “But mostly, I’d stay the same. This was a game I had to win.”</p><p>The woman stood up.</p><p>“<em>Alright</em>,” she said, and a little tune played at the back of Taylor’s mind. She smiled at the thought of dancing gopher puppets.</p><p>The first blow from the club hit Taylor’s left temple, where it wrenched her head sideways, and she blinked out stars. The second came from above and directly down. Taylor didn’t even feel the impact.</p><p> </p><p>⛳</p><p> </p><p>“Did your kid make it through qualifiers last weekend?”</p><p>Annette looked up at Andy, who was reclined at his desk in the office across from hers. The English department had an “open door policy,” which basically boiled down to some guy in overalls with a screwdriver removing every door in the building, minus the bathroom stalls. It was a beautiful idea, intended to foster an environment of comfort and support for the students and faculty on campus. In practice, no one came to office hours, and Annette’s scant time to check her emails was routinely interrupted by the slothful poetry professor directly opposite. </p><p>Andy waved a newspaper in her direction, which came out as a gray blur. Annette had forgotten her contacts at home this morning.</p><p>“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” she said, and promptly went back to deleting things from her spam folder. She liked to keep things neat, when she had the chance.</p><p>“She looks a lot like your kid. Dark curls, glasses, mouth too big for her face?”</p><p>She always loved that about her daughter. Her smiles were big and beautiful, and though she was often quiet, laughter came easily. </p><p>What was she writing, again? Annette shut her laptop in frustration.</p><p>“Why would Taylor be on the front page of the <em> Brockton Bay Gazette? </em>”</p><p>Andy flipped it open with a flourish, sliding his glasses down his nose until he could gaze out above the rims. They were fake, of course, a fact that annoyed Annette and her own vision issues to no end. His hipster fashion and invitations to slam poetry night made her feel old in a way that was probably deliberate on his part.</p><p>“It’s an article about the next generation of Brockton prodigies.” He put on a voice, reading directly from the text, “Listed here, in the photograph, from right to left, are the seven qualifying players for the annual 18-under-18 Tournament: Sabrina Seoung, Martin Van Allen, Taylor Hebert, Emma Barnes—”</p><p>Annette stood up, storming into his office.</p><p>“Give me that,” she said, and snatched the paper before he could protest.</p><p>She squinted at the name in fine print, checking for typos. It could have been a copy-editor mistake, but it was spelled the correct, French way. A coincidence, then. There were probably lots of girls with the same name in a city as big as Brockton Bay. There had been two Taylor H’s in Taylor’s fourth grade class, alone, and that was just in a group of thirty kids!</p><p>Annette flipped to the front page again, fingers crossed there weren’t any familiar faces there.</p><p>The ink printing had been a bit botched. Andy probably bought the paper at a cheaper price, thinking it would be cool and authentic or whatever other vapid thoughts ran through his head about aesthetics of trash, but the black smear only served to confuse Annette further.</p><p>She could still make out their little gray faces: two kids she didn’t know, a girl whose hair color still shined on the monochromatic page, and her daughter with that wide smile. </p><p>Her mind grasped at explanations. How could Taylor have qualified? She’d never played golf before, let alone entered a tournament. Annette knew this, because she was the one who’d ensured that. Yet here was Taylor in name and face, splashed across the page like a ghostly reminder of Annette’s youth.</p><p>“Congrats,” Andy said. “I almost qualified when I was seventeen, but lost out to some out-of-towner. I still can’t believe they don’t have rules for that sort of thing. The guy was obviously a career player. He and his mom probably just travelled around in that van from state-to-state, racking up prize money.”</p><p>Annette stumbled back to her own office, where she set the paper down to examine it further.</p><p>“Hey,” Andy continued, sounding a bit worried against the backdrop of Annette’s thundering heartbeat, “sure, it’s not the best picture they could’ve taken, but it’s still a big deal. Your kid sounds like she played like a pro this weekend.”</p><p>Emma. That must have been the missing link. They were here in the picture together, arms thrown over each other’s shoulders. Emma had that model smile Zoe blathered on about, and she looked like she was proud for the two of them, despite the fact that they’d be competing against each other in the tournament later this month.</p><p>Annette wondered how she could have missed it. It made perfect sense—something she’d always been afraid of, made manifest for the whole city to see.</p><p>“Wait a sec. Aren’t you pretty anti-golf? You threw out all those fliers the Shady Willow Club dropped off a while back.” Andy was still going on, oblivious. He was just some random spectator dropping by, the voyeur of Annette’s personal tragedy. </p><p>Was there supposed to be catharsis in this moment? It didn’t feel like a moment in text for her. There was no excising of pity or fear. If anything, it was the complete opposite, and all those long suppressed feelings came ricocheting back, emboldened by the near-happy ending her life had been up until this point.</p><p>She called Danny first, not out of choice but because he was at the top of her contacts as the emergency number. He picked up on the third ring.</p><p>“What’s going on?” he asked, tinny over the cellphone speakers. “You don’t normally call in the middle of the workday.”</p><p>“Taylor qualified for the 18-under-18 tournament.”</p><p>He paused. “I—how? She’s never golfed before.”</p><p>She tapped at the paper, scanning the rest of the article and its vapid praise. “That’s what we thought—Danny, this isn’t just the kind of competition you get into first try.”</p><p>“I know,” he replied, like he was trying to console her. Mostly though, he sounded confused. “You made it in when you were younger too, and your parents <em> still </em> talk about it. I’m just not sure I understand.”</p><p>“She’s featured in the paper, Danny,” Annette said, waving at the thing like he was in the room with her. “She’s right next to Emma, who also qualified, so clearly that’s how she’s been practicing.”</p><p>“You hear yourself, right?” he asked. “We know Alan and Zoe—Alan specifically agreed not to expose Taylor to any golf memorabilia after I had that talk with him like you asked me to. And Zoe was in Lustrum’s group with you, for god’s sake! Why would they breach our trust like that?”</p><p>Because Emma had pestered them at every sleepover and birthday party to bring her best friend along to their morning practice the next day. Because Alan was rich and could get people into the club for free. Because Zoe had rescinded every belief she’d ever had in college. Because Taylor had begged to play. </p><p>“Where’s Taylor?” Annette asked, keeping these thoughts to herself. Danny had never cared the way she had. “Is she out of school yet?”</p><p>There was a rustling on the other end. Danny was rolling up his sleeve to check his watch, or moving his mouse to turn the computer off sleep mode.</p><p>“3:40. She’s probably over at Emma’s, usually goes there on Fridays to hang out until I pick her up.”</p><p>“Not clubs? God knows I signed her up for enough of them to keep her busy until college,” Annette said. Now she was the one rustling, throwing keys into her bag and logging off her computer. She had a class to teach at six, but a quick text to the TA would cancel that.</p><p>“No,” Danny replied. “We let her be with Emma on Fridays. I think she mentioned something about sleeping over this week too.”</p><p>“She’s got her phone on her, right?” Annette pulled the phone away from her ear, already searching her contacts under “T.”</p><p>“Yeah, listen, Annette, I’ve got a meeting I have to go to. Don’t do anything rash. I can come get you from work in an hour, and we can talk this out before figuring what to do with Taylor. It’s upsetting, but it’s not the end of the wor—”</p><p>She hung up on him.</p><p>The Barnes house was on the opposite side of town, nestled among the hills and roomy houses that overlooked the city and water below. There was a golf course that practically sat in their backyard, that Annette always took the long way around to avoid. Her parents lived in the same neighborhood. She could make it in twenty, maybe fifteen minutes if she drove quickly.</p><p>Her car was parked in the far structure, since they gave priority to the professors with tenure. But there was a cart rental lot right outside, and they accepted cash. She’d only ever seen the lazier, more affluent students use it, but Annette had no time for judgement. A cart was smaller and could zip around traffic in a pinch. She’d take that instead.</p><p>Running down the stairs, she barely had time to get the cash out of her wallet and into the worker’s hand before she was seated in the nearest cart.</p><p>As she drove off of campus, it occurred to her that it had been decades since she’d last driven one of these. She’d sworn off them by senior year of high school, and hadn’t looked back since.</p><p>The little things didn’t matter so much right now. She just needed to get to Taylor, and she could fix things. She knew this like she knew the sky was blue, and the green was green.</p><p>Annette pulled out her phone, and looked away from the road so that she could text. </p>
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